On Thursday, 30 July 2026 I attended estimates hearings with the Education, Arts and Communities Committee to try and get some clarity as to why Indooroopilly State High School received no construction funding in this year's budget despite approvals in place for major infrastructure expansion.
You can read my exchange with the Director General of the Department of Education below or in the official Parliamentary record of proceedings here.
Mr BERKMAN: Director-General, you would be well aware that Indooroopilly State High School, in my electorate, has been severely overcrowded for years to the extent that around a quarter of the school is accommodated in temporary buildings. What is the justification for Indro receiving no construction funding in this year’s budget despite a major infrastructure expansion being planned and approved?
Dr ROWAN: Point of order, Deputy Speaker, under standing order 115: it is a lengthy preamble but there are also some definitive statements that I would say are suppositions or imputations or inferences within the question as well.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leader of the House, thank you for the point of order. Member for Maiwar, I did not consider the preamble to be so long as to rule the question out of order, but it did contain a number of elements. Can you simply put your question, please, around the level of funding for Indooroopilly State High School?
Mr BERKMAN: Certainly. Director-General, what is the justification within the department for Indro receiving no construction funding in this year’s budget despite a major infrastructure expansion being planned and approved?
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, member for Maiwar. I think the director-general can answer the question around funding.
Ms Schimming: The electorate of Maiwar has five schools in it and we are really proud of the progress that we have made in lots of those schools. Rainworth has received $635 million, Milton $0.283 million, Ironside $0.266 million, Indooroopilly State High School $0.258 and Indooroopilly State School $0.193, just in that renewal part. Indooroopilly State High School is one of our larger secondary schools and a very popular secondary school. The results that Indooroopilly State High School achieve with their students is something that we are really proud of as a system. The enrolments have grown steadily over the past 20 years. In fact, there were only 518 students in 2007 and at present there are 2,910 students at the school. Since 2023, the Department of Education has provided 26 new classrooms at the school, with a further four science classrooms planned for delivery in term 3 of 2026, increasing that enrolment capacity to 2,815.
There is a school enrolment management plan. I think it is really important that I talk about the school enrolment management plans. When our schools are at capacity—in fact, when we reach 95 per cent capacity—it is very important that the principal works with the school community to ensure that they are enrolling students from within the catchment. We have a legislative obligation to ensure that students who are within the catchment of a school are able to go to that school. Indooroopilly State High School is one of our schools that had a number of excellence programs and a number of other programs where they enrolled students outside of the catchment. Over the last couple of years, we have actually been working with the principal and with the school community to reduce the number of out-of-catchment enrolments so that the capacity of the school is able to host the number of students that it has.
With that in mind, the enrolment growth has slowed since 2023 because of the compliance to that enrolment management plan. The number of students enrolled out of catchment has reduced from 1,198 in 2021 to 871 in 2026. It is also forecast that with continuing strong enforcement of the school enrolment management plan, the enrolments are likely to remain at around 2,800 to 2,900 over the next few years before they then actually start to decline beyond 2028. Over the medium- to long-term, the in-catchment enrolments are forecast to stabilise to 2,400 to 2,500 students.
There has been a master plan completed for the school. Because what has happened at Indooroopilly State High School and with many of our secondary schools is that there has been a modernisation for learning spaces, particularly when we think about science facilities et cetera. That master plan has included a number of those buildings. There has been no funding that has been committed to the delivery of the stages that have been identified in that plan. We are actually considering that we watch those enrolments very closely and work with the school community around that.
Mr BERKMAN: Director-General, I note your comments around the enrolment forecasts. Additionally, a response to a question on notice I asked last year indicated that this is the first time the department has proposed a school development program that accommodates fewer students than are currently enrolled at the school. When and how will the department review the expectation that enrolments will fall in light of the simple reality that they are continuing to grow despite strict enforcement of the enrolment management plan?
Ms Schimming: As I have just talked about, that enrolment management plan and compliance to the enrolment management plan is key not just at Indooroopilly State High School but across a number of our schools at this point in time so we are monitoring and working with the school principals. I stand to be corrected but the deputy director-general is here: I think we have about seven schools at this point in time that are on very close watch around their enrolment management plans, Indooroopilly State High School being one of them. That close watch means that every term we speak with the principal and look at what the enrolment has been within the catchment. We work with the school around what type of strategies they then need to put in place. For example, next year when they look at their excellence program at the school, that excellence program will actually reduce if it is that the enrolments are increasing. There are other schools that are in similar circumstances to Indooroopilly State High School. As a department, I am
actually really proud of the fact that our school principals are really working with us around the enrolment management plan. Over time, some of our schools become residualised and the population in a particular geographic area decreases so the enrolments, therefore, are not there and we have buildings in schools that are not being utilised because that happens.
When we have a school that has lots of excellence programs and if they are taking students from out of catchment, it means we residualise some of the schools around it, and then we waste money in putting buildings in schools that we do not need as we have buildings in other schools. As a system, I think we have done a remarkable job over the last few years in making sure we are giving our taxpayers the absolute best bang for their dollar because we are only putting classrooms where we know there are going to be students and we are looking at what it looks like for those schools that do not have a population and how we can modernise those and make sure they are attractive for school communities to go to.